


what you do in this world is a matter of no consequence

by fab_ia



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: 'a study in scarlet' au, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Male Character, a sherlock au in this the year of our lord 2019? yes now leave me alone, historically accurate to a point, thinly veiled victorian homosexuality, who just so happens to be gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fab_ia/pseuds/fab_ia
Summary: "there's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."warren kepler is an injured veteran returning from afghanistan. daniel jacobi is an eccentric, with far too much interest in murder cases he isn't involved in.A.C.D Sherlock Holmes AU, based on 'A Study in Scarlet'





	what you do in this world is a matter of no consequence

It was early summer when I took my degree of Medicine. June of 1874, I believe, with the flowers in my window-box in full bloom due to the careful care I had taken with thin that year. The receival of the degree itself was heralded with the birthday of my partner at the time, who celebrated with a small get-together for the two of us and several close friends, the room quickly becoming filled with cigar-smoke and my own mouth by the taste of the finest imported whisky we could find. 

Upon receiving my degree, I made the journey to Netley. I had always had the intention to join up as a physician in the army, but it was there that I decided a field surgeon was the right path for me. I switched my course early on, and so I finished my studies at the same time as many of my peers (besides the few who had, unfortunately, dropped out along the way and settled themselves in jobs that myself and my associates agreed would likely be far more enjoyable than our own).

I was assigned to a regiment stationed in India, prior to the start of the second Afghan war, whereupon many of those I had seen training for active combat and myself were forced to make our way deep into enemy country purely to find our superiors and, in some unique cases, inferiors. We had barely two hours to settle ourselves before we were put to work. 

I loved my time there. 

My family expected me to join the army, of course, as the parents of most young men like myself did. I was intelligent, if I may be a little vain, and good at most things physical. I do not believe that they imagined for an instant that I would be a surgeon instead of on the front line - they thought of me as a young man with a passion for guts and glory, while I was perfectly content to work to save my fellow man’s lives. 

It was lucky, then, that there was someone there to save my own. I was forced into the front lines at Maiwand, where I was struck in the shoulder by a bullet. The very bone itself was shattered, and the subclavian artery grazed. While I lay on the ground, intense pain radiating from my left side, I was struck by the knowledge that I was about to die while still having achieved little with my life, but thanks to one of the new recruit’s quick thinking, I was operated on quickly, swiftly, and cleanly, and sent home to London without delay. 

Of course, that is nowhere even  _ close  _ to the full story - I was struck down with enteric fever while still in hospital and for a short time, doctors were unsure as to whether I would survive - but it is enough. All that truly mattered to me, at that moment, was that I was back in England, and that I had missed the rain. 

The state of my finances, mere months later, was entirely my own fault. I had originally returned to Dover, travelling to London and staying in one of the more elite hotels I found on the Strand, leading a life of luxury and hedonism akin to that which I can only imagine royalty lives. It was with a great deal of alarm that I realised I was quickly running out of money and (to my even greater chagrin) that I realised I would have to begin searching for a job. 

Very few, I quickly found, were jobs I fit a role for. I had just left an unsuccessful trial, in fact, when I found myself leaning on a railing to take some weight off of my leg, walking stick held loosely in one hand by my side. The ornately-carved thing had been a condolence gift from my elder sister, a nice thought from a mind-addled drunkard. I do love my sister, of course, and I care a great deal about her, it’s just that she can be a little frustrating a great deal of the time. 

Beside this railing, then, was where Douglas had found me. 

I had been lamenting my choices and decisions up to that point when I head a hearty “Warren?” called out to me from across the street. Lifting my head, I was initially struck by how well-dressed and collected he appeared to be, since the last time I had seen him had been at my ex-partner’s get-together. Prior to that, I had known him through our studies, although I found he had always lacked a certain amount of enthusiasm. In fact, Douglas had been my closest friend during my time at Netley, but had dropped out seven months in, after a job at a hospital in what was home for him had come up. 

In those years since I had last seen him, though, he almost appeared to have grown taller - impossible, I know, but it was how it appeared. He wore a nicely-fitted outfit, a careful smile on his face.

“Douglas,” I replied when he finally made his way over to me, managing only to muster a half-hearted attempt at his enthusiasm. “It’s good to see you, old friend. You look like you’ve done well with yourself.”

“I met someone,” he simply said, offering no further explanation. “You look …  _ forlorn,  _ my dear companion. Care for a drink?”

“Not today,” I said regretfully, the knowledge of my nearly-empty pocket enough to almost force tears of regret from me. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to for quite some time.”

“That’s too bad,” he sighed. “Well, none for either of us, I suppose. Are you out of work, then?”

“Momentarily,” I nodded. “I’m afraid I’m not having much luck. Nothing waiting in the daily post for me, I’m afraid. Although, this is hardly an appropriate place to discuss - well,  _ anything _ . What say we go to lunch?”

“Where do you fancy?” he asked, cocking his head to one side before nodding upon hearing my suggestion of the Holborn. 

I recounted my adventures to him throughout our journey in the hansom, sparing no gory detail. Douglas, seeing me alive and relatively well in front of him, had no difficulty in stomaching the details of my injury, although he grimaced when I told him of the others who had not been so lucky as I.

“What are your plans now, then?” he asked, staring at me with dark and steady eyes from across the table. I hummed, thinking for a moment. 

“I’m not entirely certain,” I admitted, a nervous smile forcing its way onto my face. “I’ll have to look for lodgings, I suppose, although I doubt there’ll be much I can afford at the moment.”

Douglas chuckled to himself, glancing out of the window with a smile. “You know,” he said, “it’s a strange thing, that. You’re the second person to bring up the difficulty of finding affordable rooms in London today.”

“Really?” I said, almost disbelieving. “Who was the first, then?”

His smile never left his face as he looked at me again. “A strange young man,” he said, voice taking on a thoughtful tone. “A fellow working at the chemistry laboratory at the local hospital - St. Bart’s, you know the one?”

“Of course I do,” I said in reply. My memories of London were nowhere near  _ that  _ unclear, and I found that I was insulted he had insisted they were. Douglas laughed again, amusement coming easily to him, as I’m certain it always had. 

“Well,” he continued, tone unaffected as though my reply had been a simple ‘yes’, “just this morning he was bemoaning himself, as he claims it to be impossible to find anybody to go halves with him on some nice rooms he apparently found, but are too much for him to pay for out of pocket.”

“Good Lord,” I said after a moment for the information to really strike me, “you mean to say you think I would be a good fit? I must admit, I haven’t truly lived alone since before the army..”

“I didn’t exactly say that I thought you were a good fit.”

“Well,” I said. “I think I would prefer having a partner to living alone, at any rate.”

For a few moments, Douglas simply stared at me over the rim of his wine-glass, before he hummed a little. “You haven’t met him, yet,” he said with the faintest hint of amusement in his tone. “Daniel Jacobi is… a curious man. Perhaps you would not be so eager for him as a constant companion if you had.”

I remember hesitating, then, for his tone gave me a sense of apprehension. “Why? Is there something against him? Has - has this man been arrested in the past, or - “

“Nothing so extraordinary,” my friend laughed, shaking his head. “He’s simply rather strange. A chemistry student, I think, although he tends to employ some curious methods to his research.”

“A medical student, then,” I suggested. “Surely that would make more sense.”

Douglas made a noise I could only assume was meant to indicate his uncertainty. “In truth, Warren,” he eventually said, “I can’t be certain. He is a first-class chemist, undoubtedly, but he is also well up in anatomy. One thing I can say, though, is that he has never taken a medical class. He’s… intelligent, though. Well-versed in many areas, as I’m sure you’ll find out.”

“What makes you so sure that I’ll still want to meet him?” I asked although in truth, I knew that Douglas could read my intentions as though I had scrawled them on a page and stuck it to my jacket. This fellow sounded, to put it simply,  _ fascinating _ , and I had every intention of finding out more about him.

I admit, sometimes my curiosity can get the better of me. In those moments where I find myself lost in my thoughts and speculations, I find myself referring to it as my  _ hamartia _ , much as I believe Aristotle would have regarded it as. As a child, I often stuck my nose where it wasn’t needed or wanted, which lead to my discovery of my brother’s opium addiction quite some time before our parents caught on. But the stories Douglas told me, the rumours about this strange young man I was about to meet, they intrigued me as so many failed to. 

The walk the two of us took to St. Bart’s was uneventful, really, aside from the young man Douglas and I saw feeding the pigeons. Our arrival was similarly so, but my knee was causing me a great deal of pain by the time we reached the doors, so we took a break so I could make my way upstairs to meet the stranger. 

“Is there anything else I should know about him?” I asked, the fingers on my good hand working at my stiff leg. 

“That I’m not the one to blame if this meeting goes poorly,” he replied rather sharply. “You were the one so desperate to meet him. I myself have only seen him a few times in passing, and heard rumours from others. Truthfully, I don’t have an opinion on him, myself, other than he is remarkably intelligent.”

“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I said. “You seem reluctant to share any details of him,” I continued, frowning a little as we began to walk to where he had assured me the man would be. “Is there something you haven’t shared with me?”

Douglas hesitated before he spoke again, regarding me almost strangely. “Well,” he eventually said. “It  _ is  _ difficult to express the inexpressible, Warren. The fellow has a passion for knowledge and discovery, that much is certain, but the way he expresses interest is… unusual.”

“Unusual?”

“Well,” my friend said, fumbling, “it’s - his methods could be called  _ unorthodox.  _ Last I heard, he was beating cadavers with a stick in order to see the formation of bruises after death.”

All I could do was stare at him. I was certain that he would be joking, but the icy cold in his gaze betrayed nothing but severity. 

“I see,” I eventually got out. “Morbid curiosity. Fascinating.”

“Quite,” Douglas said, a little weakly. In that moment, I think that I pitied him. His stomach had never quite been strong enough to cope with death, a fact which had taken him nearly the entirety of our studies together to realise, even though he could cope with gore and the like just fine, so long as the poor sod suffering survived in the end. “Still,” he continued in his normal voice, “you’ll have a chance to make up your own opinion of him now, since he is currently in the laboratory at the end of the hall.”

He nodded towards the corridor we had just reached - long and bleak, with white-washed walls and unassumingly plain doors. I almost shuddered as I looked around, but nodded at my friend and we set off. 

Hospitals have always unnerved me, which is partly the reason I decided against pursuing any sort of profession inside one. I was certainly knowledgeable enough to, achieving high results throughout my schooling, but I found the idea of travelling and helping those fighting for our country to be one more appealing. 

“In here,” Douglas said after a few minutes, knocking twice on a door I would have never looked at besides a cursory glance, and pushing it open without waiting for any sort of reply. 

The chemistry laboratory was, unlike I expected, quiet, with only one person inside. The room itself was lofty, high ceilings and long windows letting in a good deal of natural light. Broad, low, wooden tables I could only presume were once in some sort of order were scattered about the room, papers and books littering many of them, as well as test tubes and Bunsen lamps, giving the shadows a blue tint to them. At the sound of the door, the student at the other side of the room looked up, holding up something in his hand.

“I’ve found it,” the stranger said in delight. “Eiffel, look, I  _ found  _ it!”

This, I realised, must be the man Douglas had been talking about. I glanced over at my friend and saw a fond smile on his face, although he still looked almost a little surprised. 

“What have you found, Jacobi?” he asked, shifting his weight onto his other foot. “Something enlightening, I hope.”

The man, Jacobi, laughed. “A re-agent, precipitated by hœmoglobin, and  _ nothing else _ !” He laughed once more, before his gaze landed on me and he paused, tilting his head to the side, questioning. “Who’s your friend?”

Having his gaze on me for the first time sent a shiver up my spine as I watched him get to his feet and walk over to me. I stared back, uncertain as to whether he expected me to introduce myself or if Douglas was to do it for me.

“Ah,” Douglas eventually said. “This is a friend from years ago - Dr. Warren Kepler. Warren, this is the young man I was telling you about, Mr. Daniel Jacobi.”

“How do you do?” he said politely, holding out a hand for me to shake, surprisingly strong for a man considerably shorter than myself. “You have been in Afghanistan, then?”

In my astonishment, I dropped his hand, staring at him wide-eyed and, likely, open-mouthed. “I - how on  _ earth _ did you - “

He smiled at me, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Never mind, sir, never mind,” he said, chuckling a little. “Now, to the affair at hand. The question now is the hœmoglobin, is it not? No doubt you see the significance of my discovery, Doctor?”

“Chemically,” I slowly began to answer, “it is certainly very interesting, but as to practicality - “

Jacobi chuckled once more, regarding me curiously. “Why,” he said, “I’d wager that it is the  _ most  _ practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don’t you see - it gives an  _ infallible  _ rest for bloodstains. Come over here, will you?” 

Before waiting for my reply, he had seized me by the coat-sleeve and dragged me to the table he had been working at before. I was unsurprised to see it covered in loose paper and books, scratchy penmanship on them that I didn’t bother to read, but knew would be detailing his experiments thus far to discover this re-agent. Jacobi looked back to me, unconcerned with how intently I was taking in my surroundings. 

“Now,” he said, “we test it. Let us have some fresh blood.”

I simply watched as he dug a long bodkin into his finger, the blood that leaked from the subsequent injury being drawn into a chemical pipette. “If you watch,” he said, dropping the blood into a pitcher of water, “you shall perceive that it simply appears to be a litre of water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that it will be enough to achieve the desired reaction.”

I found I was unable to look away as he added a few white crystals to the mixture, followed by a few drops of some transparent fluid. In an instant, the contents had taken on a dull mahogany colour, with a dark brown dust precipitated to the bottom of the glass. I made a noise to indicate that I was impressed, and Jacobi let out a short burst of laughter. 

“Ha!  ha! Well, then,” he said, smile not so kind as it had been earlier, more smug, although he was clearly still delighted. “What do you think of that?”

“Well,” I said, “It seems a very delicate test, Mr. Jacobi.”

“Delicate? Beautiful!” he cried, meeting my eyes once more. “The old test - the Guiacum test - is clumsy and uncertain. The microscopic examination for blood corpsicules - not only is it clumsy, it is practically impossible to transport the required equipment in any simple way, and entirely valueless if the stains are a few hours old. This test -  _ my  _ test - appears to work no matter if the blood is old or new. Good Lord - can you imagine how many men would be serving time in prison had this test been invented before?”

I found myself nodding along to his voice, entranced by his words. “Indeed,” I murmured, searing myself on a high three-legged stool beside the water and examining it. Jacobi’s smile grew a little wider as he watched. 

“You see,” he continued, “criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is accused of some kind of crime - perhaps this accusation comes months after the crime itself has been committed. His clothing is examined and, sure enough, those looking find some kind of brown stains upon the cloth! But by this point, of course, they are entirely unidentifiable - are they blood? mud? rust?”

“Who’s to say?” 

“ _ Indeed _ ,” he said. “But now, now they can! Who’s to say- the chief of police! With this test - named after myself, of course - they can easily say! A simple and reliable test, solving a problem that has stumped many an expert in the past.”

I turned my gaze towards him once again and watched as he clamped a hand over his heart and bowed, eyes glittering, as if to some imaginary crowd he has conjured up to celebrate in his discovery with him. I chuckled a little, crossing my arms in front of me. 

“You are, then, to be congratulated,” I remarked, both amused and considerably surprised at his clear enthusiasm. “I have to say, you are incredibly knowledgeable about crime, and the like.”

Jacobi smiled a little too as behind us, Douglas laughed. “He should start a column,” he said, continuing after a brief pause with “or perhaps your own paper.” 

“I’d rather read it than write it,” Jacobi remarked, frowning as he stuck a small piece of plaster over the cut on his finger. “I must be careful,” he said, turning back to me with a smile on his face once again. “Oftentimes, I work with poisons or more hazardous chemicals.”

He held out his hand to me and, upon taking it into my own, it was apparent that his skin was rough and calloused, marred and mottled with similar pieces of plaster, and that his skin was a little discoloured in places due to strong acids. 

“We did come here on business,”  Douglas said after a few moments of my silence, as I dropped Jacobi’s hand in a hurry, having been shaken from my study of it, although no comment had been made on my lingering eyes. “My friend here wants to take diggings, and as I know you were complaining there were none willing to go halves with you, I thought it best for the two of you to be introduced.”

Another burst of laughter from the young man, seemingly delighted at the very idea of sharing his rooms with me. “I have my eye on a suite,” he said, “in Baker Street that I believe would suit us down to the ground. Although, I must ask - do you mind the smell of strong tobacco?”

“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered, finding myself unconcerned by his questions. 

“That’s good enough,” he said with a nod. “I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally do experiments. Would that annoy you?”   


“By no means.”   


“Let me see - what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What have you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.” 

I laughed - not at him, but at his fervent cross-examination of myself and my character. “I keep a pup,” I said, “and object to rows, as my nerves are all shaken. I wake up at ungodly hours and struggle to fall asleep once I am up. When I am well, my vices are entirely different, but these are the principal ones at present.”

“Does your list of rows include violin-playing?” he asked, seemingly anxious. I shook my head no. 

“Not unless it is badly-played,” I replied. “If the player is good - “

“Ah,” he laughed once more, “that shan’t be a problem, then! I think we ought to consider the thing as settled - only, of course, if the rooms are agreeable with you.”

I nodded, for I had no reason not to. “When shall we see them, then?”

“Call for me here,” he said. “To-morrow, at noon, and we shall go together and settle everything.”

“All right,” I said. “Noon, then,” and we shook hands once more. Again, I was struck by the strength of his grip, although it was a little weaker now due to the likely still sore prick in his finger. 

Douglas and I left him to his chemicals, our last sight of him before the door closed one of him bent over and writing something down. We began the walk back to my hotel, although my mind was elsewhere, far behind us in the laboratory at St. Bart’s. 

“Oh,” I said, for it had suddenly struck me once more, “Douglas, by the way - how the deuce did he know I had been in Afghanistan? Did you tell him beforehand?”

My companion smiled, shaking his head.   “I didn’t say a word,” he promised. “That’s just his peculiarity. A great deal of people have wished to know how he finds these things out, although none have as of yet.”

“Ah,” I said, “a mystery, then?”

“Of sorts, I suppose.”

“This  _ is  _ interesting,” I said. “I must thank you for bringing the two of us together, Douglas! ‘The proper study of mankind is man’, and the like.”

“Then you must study him,” Douglas said simply. “I don’t doubt you’ll find him a knotty problem, and I have no qualms about the fact he’s likely to discover more about you than you do him.”

“We shall see, then,” I said.

Douglas chuckled. “Good-bye then, Warren,” he said. “Don’t forget your meeting at noon to-morrow.”

“Good-bye,” I answered, strolling into my hotel with my thoughts elsewhere once again, considerably interested in my new acquaintance.

**Author's Note:**

> hahahaha hi thank you for reading my incredible self-indulgent au uh if you liked it i'm on tumblr @sciencematter


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